Lawrence Dallaglio’s estranged wife sells their £2.7million former home in bid to save England rugby star from bankruptcy

Lawrence Dallaglio’s estranged wife has put the couple’s £2.7million home up for sale in a bid to save the rugby star from bankruptcy.

Alice Dallaglio has applied to the High Court for a validation order which would allow the immediate sale of the couple’s former home.

Mr Dallaglio was told he was facing a ‘bankruptcy order’ at an Insolvency and Companies Court Hearing on Tuesday, The Telegraph reported.

The former England rugby star narrowly avoided losing everything two years ago when he paid off debts that included £700,000 in unpaid tax.

Dallaglio, 52, and former model Alice, also 52, the mother of his three children, have been at the four-bedroom property for more than twenty years.

They moved there in 2001 and bought it for £925,000. Since then the property has more than tripled in value.

Alice Dallaglio launched an urgent application on Friday for an order allowing the immediate sale of the home which the couple shared for more than 20 years.

She was represented at the hearing by Craig Parrett, a director at Isadore Goldman specialising in personal and corporate insolvency.

Mr Parrett told the court: ‘The completion of the property’s set for tomorrow and all the parties are keen to ensure that completion can proceed for the benefit of the first respondent’s [Dallaglio’s] creditors.’

Mr Parrett said the sale price of the property was ‘about £2.7 million’ but that equity in the home was only ‘around £1.2 million’.

Dallaglio previously faced a bankrupcty petition by HM Revenue and Customs, but it was withdrawn in September 2023 after he reached an individual voluntary arrangement (IVA) to pay off his debts.

Mr Parrett told deputy ICC judge Stephen Baister that solicitors acting on the sale of the Dallaglio family home had ‘agreed to hold the net sale proceeds’. 

He added: ‘If a bankruptcy order is made, the net sale proceeds will be provided to a trustee. If the bankruptcy order is not made, they’ll be provided to the IVA supervisor.’

Judge Baister told Parrett he would prioritise the application pending minor modifications, saying: ‘Get it in quickly enough. I’m sitting in the afternoon and I’ll certainly get it done.’

Dallaglio was represented by executive assistant Anna Bathurst, who spoke only to apologise for her client’s absence due to his work, the rugby star was filming with TNT Sports on Tuesday.

The marriage of Lawrence Dallaglio never fully recovered from his wife’s affair with one of his longstanding friends before they tied the knot, it has been claimed.

Former model Alice Corbett had a fling at the age of 31 with millionaire property developer Leon Butler in 2005 after her relationship with Dallaglio hit a rocky patch following the birth of their three children.

Her affair came six years after Dallaglio was stripped of the England captaincy after he allegedly confessed he had used prostitutes in Amsterdam, and was accused of using and dealing cocaine and ecstasy.

He lost the prestigious role after strenuously denying the drugs claims, although he went on to play a key role in England’s World Cup winning side in 2003.

Alice and Dallaglio, who reportedly had his own fling with a married woman two years previously, had hoped to make a clean start when they got married in 2005 after ten years together.

Their marriage survived a succession of scandals including Dallaglio being accused of spending £10,000 at a London brothel which offered high-class hookers and cocaine, and being forced to close his business while facing a £700,000 tax bill.

Their 20-year marriage finally came to an end in February when the couple attended the Central Family Court in Holborn in London in an attempt to agree to the terms of their separation.

Dallaglio had revealed in March 2005 that he and Alice were on a ‘trial separation’ following claims that she was fed up with his rugby commitments taking him away from home for months at a time, and was running out of patience over their failure to marry.

He tried to play down their separation at the time, saying: ‘We want to make it work. As far as I’m concerned, we’re not splitting for good.’ He was said to have added: ‘Like any couple with young children, we are determined to make our relationship work.’

But just days later it was claimed that Alice had been visiting Butler, then 32, at his £2 million house in Chelsea while Wasps captain Dallaglio was away playing and training.

Dallaglio’s suspicions of an affair were reportedly confirmed after he discovered the mother of his three children had made hundreds of late night calls to Butler on her mobile phone.

The revelation was said to have left him distraught amid fears that it had destroyed his hopes of patching up his relationship with Alice, the mother of his daughters, Ella and Josie, and his son Enzo.

A close friend of former choirboy Dallaglio told The Sun at the time: ‘He’s gutted. Lawrence had his suspicions but now he knows about the phone calls, they have been confirmed.

‘It is a particular blow to Lawrence because Leon is friends with several of his England and Wasps teammates.’

Dallaglio’s financial woes have been well documented. His company Lawrence Dallaglio Limited previously faced a winding-up petition from HMRC over an unpaid tax bill.

He liquidated the company, but a report recently stated he was still being chased for hundreds of thousands of pounds loaned to the firm.

Upon announcing his retirement from rugby in 2008, Dallaglio told the Financial Times: ‘I think one has a responsibility to ensure that the taxman does not get everything.’

The couple’s house originally went on the marker last year for £3.3million but the asking price has now been reduced by £600,000.

Set in a leafy and exclusive part of Richmond, southwest London it is listed with estate agents Savills and Knight Frank, and described as being in an ‘idyllic private plot’.

Keen cook Dallaglio and Alice would often host dinner parties at the house, and he once said his idea of a good night would be ‘drinking champagne with her’ there.

It is just a few minutes from Richmond Park where Dallaglio has often been seen cycling.

The house has a reception hall, reception room, family room conservatory/dining area, kitchen breakfast room and study.

While on the first floor there is a master suite with bathroom, three other double bedrooms and two bathrooms.

The gardens are landscaped and there is also a garden studio designed by Chelsea Flower Show gold medal winner Diarmuid Gavin.    

Dallaglio was first hit by scandal in 1999 when he was coerced to speak to an undercover reporter from the now defunct News of the World, and bragged about having sex with prostitutes while staying in an Amsterdam hotel.

He was quoted as telling journalist who was posing as the representative of a shaving cream manufacturer: ‘I used to be a (teenage) drug dealer. I made big, big money from dealing in drugs.

‘Why do you think I know so much about drugs? I was surrounded by it. I used to drive from one end of London to the other with five or six ounces of it (cocaine). That’s how I used to make money before I took up rugby.’

The newspaper also reported that Dallaglio boasted how he and two other players had taken the drug ecstasy ‘and then a couple of wraps of coke’ to celebrate winning the 1997 Lions series in South Africa.

Dallaglio was horrified when the article appeared, and claimed that he had made up much of what he’d said to the journalist because he was ‘naïve and foolish’.

At a press conference following his resignation as captain, Dallaglio, then 26, admitted he had experimented with drugs in his late teens and ‘for that I am not proud’.

But he told reporters he was now ‘completely against drugs’, adding: ‘I will always regret the effect that this has had on everyone.’

The Rugby Football Union eventually dropped drugs charges against him after ‘new evidence’ emerged during an open hearing chaired by a high court judge.

He was instead fined £15,000 for bringing the game into disrepute on top of legal costs amounting to £10,000.

More than 20 years later in 2020, Dallaglio was at the centre of more intrigue when his name was mentioned during the trial of four men and a woman accused of running a brothel in Holborn, central London, where customers were able to purchase cocaine.

The former player overcame tragedy in his personal life, with his sister Francesca being among 51 victims of the Marchioness disaster in 1989 when two boats collided on the River Thames in London.

On the 35th anniversary of the tragedy last year, the rugby icon paid tribute to his late sister in an Instagram post.